Walking on ice floes

I realise this is not news to those of you who follow my blog/facebook/have met me… But wow. What a week. Rose and I have done the high of proposing, and one major low of a respected friend who has always been comfortable about her being queer attacking her for the meaningless waste of money that was our engagement because she’ll fight to the end to prevent people like us from ever being allowed to get married. Random crap from strangers we’re pretty used to, but it’s hard when it’s someone you respect(ed). Queer relationships face a lot of stresses that straight ones just don’t, which is really sad and needless.

It’s been very up and down! There are a lot of pressures and changes happening. I’m peaceful, hopeful, scared, grieving, triggered, excited, confused, and tired. Most of the time I feel like I’m juggling it all okay. Sometimes I need to sit and cry about it all. Sometimes it’s been really hard and you start to do that thing where you wonder if it will always be this hard, and never easier, and you wonder how you could possibly bear it. Worse when we’re both triggered and down in a deep pit of loss and pain where it feels like we’ll never laugh again or touch without flinching or feel hope for the future. Then we weave a rope out and hold each other, weeping with relief, because sometimes the only thing more frightening than being alone in your pain is being deep in it with someone else who is just as lost.

We saw Tori Amos in concert last night. She was beautiful. I wept through half the songs.

I am embroiled in a lot of paperwork. I have done a lot of housework. We have put a LOT of stuff for our hard waste collection this week. College is wrapping up and I have 3 more major assignments due. I have handed all my tax related paperwork in for the past several financial years. I am waiting to hear back if I need to work more on them. I can’t wait to have it done, and have college done too. Christmas is coming up fast and I’m horribly unprepared and very broke.

I just found out that I received a HD for my Art History essay. Whoot! 🙂

Last night I halved again my dose of hormones. I’m nearly off the meds and ready to try for a baby. OMG! We have a steady trickle of baby things coming into the house. Last night Rose bought home a huge full length pregnancy pillow to hug when I sleep, helps reduce strain on hips and back. I bought three waterproof bags on special to stuff with cloth nappies when we’re out and about. Our collection of baby clothes and cloth nappies and soft carriers and very tiny shoes is now too large for the big zipped bag under my bed.

There was a big hot button topic on the discussion group on the huge DI facebook page I admin, and my head didn’t fall off. I’m pretty thrilled about that. There were a lot of follow up conversations with me in private that did make my head fall off a bit, but also clarified a lot of my ideas about the DI, what I’m trying to do and why. Which is pretty cool. I’ve finally realised that the biggest difference between what I’m trying to do with my mental health resources, and that of groups, organisations, and resources that I’m frustrated by is the value of Diversity. This can be a guiding principle for me in responding to my own multiplicity, it has moved me from a place of chronic threat to a place of relative peace and community. It’s now been written in to the home page of the DI and I’ve updated the other values too, and changed what used to be called Recovery to Dignity, which is the best word I could think of to encapsulate the principles of the original recovery model rather than what recovery has come to mean as the word has been distorted.

Month by month I understand more, I can articulate more clearly what I’ve been trying to do, what distresses me so much about the current models, and what we can replace them with. It’s exciting! I’m building something I care deeply about. It’s a legacy. I got several more messages recently from people thanking me for this blog or the DI or the other resources I’ve been putting out there. I stuff them in the space around my heart to keep me warm when I feel useless and insignificant. I’m considering applying for some jobs to give me more money and contacts in the mental health world while I’m trying to build my business. We’re still waiting to hear if Rose is getting her contract renewed. Life is in a strange state of flux. A cat that is both alive and dead in a box we haven’t opened yet.

Like this:

Post navigation

4 thoughts on “Walking on ice floes”

… in case you are wondering… Seinserfahrung used to be called Gotteserfahrung (=experience of god). without religion, it that sense of joy and peace you get – say on a mountaintop watching a beautiful sunset or… getting engaged with your loved partner…

… as for the friend rejecting marriage for you – I remember reading in Karlfried Graf von Duerckheim (Existential Therapy) years ago – it seemed like a ‘law’ that after every Seinserfahrung some adversity followed. He is not someone into magical thinking, it seems more an impulse for accepting this world of dualities…?

Well, I guess if we allow a large enough period of time, or a wide enough definition of adversity, it would certainly be inevitable! It felt a little odd to write of having struggles so soon after such a glorious and touching time, yet also real; all troubles are not over and all problems are not solved, we do not ride off into a sunset but rather stay, and struggle, and overcome, and live in a complicated world as best we can…. 🙂